Whispers of hell
by Inkfire
Summary: This place is full of whispers, heavy clouds of despair that chill her thin frame and ice her heart over. Bellatrix in Azkaban.


**So this is my first Harry Potter writing in AGES.... And one that I really do hold dear, so tell me what you think about it, please!!!!!!!!!!!**

**Thanks to the amazing xoxLewrahxox who beta-read this despite her being insanely busy these days^^. I love you, hun!**

This place is full of whispers. The Dementors ragged breath overwhelms us with coldness and despair which chills my limbs, sending shivers down my spine. I hug my knees, rocking myself lightly, pressing my lips together to keep little moans from escaping. Every other person around me lets it loose: moans, groans, whimpers. They talk to themselves, my fellows in suffering. Very low words, yet loud screams sometimes – mostly in their sleep. Only newcomers scream while they're awake here. Though there haven't been any newcomers for years, I still can remember that.

I recall that when I arrived, I did not scream. Weakness. I was used to keeping it all inside: hurt and happiness, love and true agony.... Yet, late at night, after I had finally fallen unconscious, exhausted by anguish, hatred, loss and despair, I woke up screaming at the top of my lungs, and I screamed, and screamed, and screamed, it never seemed to stop, until my screaming turned into dry sobs that pained my throat. Eventually it was silent again, yet my outcry of distress still rang in my ears; I knew that I was defeated. I wasn't strong. I was alone and weak, and also cold and hideously frightened by this whole nightmarish place; I yearned for my Lord to come and get me, yet he wouldn't. He needed _me_ to go and find him, but I had failed him; my faith, my loyalty were nothing, empty words, cold and useless like the wet mist that clung to my icy skin. I had failed him! And this place was a never-ending punishment, a curse meant to break me down, then carefully step on the pieces to make sure they were utterly shattered before burning them. I was terrified, nobody would ever come to rescue me, and I would scream my throat raw every night, calling for people that wouldn't come.

I was correct this night.

Maybe that's why I cling so desperately to my silence at day.

The others don't seem to mind their noises at all. They fear the suffering; I fear it too of course, yet the worst is much more than that. I fear _myself_. I think I always did. Yet again, I was always prone to self-destruction.

I don't want to look at myself too much, because it hurts; that again was always the same. I always was skinny and pale, and I always hated every part of me I saw; an irrational, deep and senseless hatred, for I know I used to be beautiful. Now that I am weak and left to rot in my weakness without any way to get distracted, I come back to my old parade; oddly enough, I loved my livid skin when it was stained with crimson. It wasn't the glorious crimson of my murdering nights; I always was disgusted by it, I didn't want this filth to spoil my flesh, to connect with my own spicy, pure, full of magic blood. For my blood came out too often for me to take any chances. Oh, no. I loved my little knife, whose blade felt so smooth and icy and oddly_ pure _against my right arm. I loved my own blood, I almost worshipped it: I loved its shade, its taste, its light smell, I loved the scars and I laughed at my own disturbed fantasies. It was like a dream, a warm cosy crimson dream that stole me from the violence within and the intensity of my hatred.

Here, they took my knife away, and my wand of course; but I still have myself; my violence, my hatred, and my ways of taking it out. So I stare at my dirty and painful hands – the nails broken from being gritted so repeatedly on the hard walls and the icy floor I sleep on, the fingers bloody and scratched, by the sharp rock that isn't anything near smooth again, by the nails still left, and even by my pointed teeth when I don't find anything else – and it helps me sometimes.

But the Dementors are skilled at putting the relief away.

I don't welcome every pain. Some of my nights are truly painful; I fear them for that, if the insomnia, the nightmares and the screaming aren't enough. They come at night, the keepers, because there are indeed human keepers in Azkaban, though what they are there for is beyond my haunted mind. I don't even know why they bother to hide in the shadows: the Dementors couldn't care less – they are delighted even, they always stick by my cell after the last man is gone – and the other prisoners.... They are far too gone in their own little hell to notice anything, I guess. If it happened to anyone else – though I am the only woman here – I think I'd never see anything. I can hardly make sense of anything that happens outside of myself now. But all the same they hide. Is it for their conscience's sake perhaps? It must be something along those lines, for even as they're inside my cell and doing what they came for, they have to whisper dirty names and insults in my ear, to speak about the Longbottoms and me being a bloody whore – though they must see that I don't give a fuck about that part – to remind themselves that they are spilling inside a torturer and a killer, and they are meant to be the good ones in the cell.

Then they get back up, put their clothes back on, kick my almost lifeless body on the floor, spit on me, add a couple of names if they have any left – if orgasm hasn't melted their brains, I guess – and creep away.

Some have wives; I only know because there are these really big rings that leave marks where they have hit me with their left fist.

Wedding rings should be little and delicate. I thought that already before I started having ring marks on the face, the breasts, the back, the ribs, the arms and the stomach.

But I don't want to think about my scars, my keepers, or my cell, I don't want to see them. I'm afraid I'll forget what real life is, if I focus on this damned place.

So I curl on the icy floor, hugging my knees. Closing my eyes, I speak inside my head in a slow mantra:

«My name is Bellatrix Morgana Black-Lestrange, I am the wife of Rodolphus Lynceus Lestrange, daughter of Cygnus Larcius Black and Druella Phasma Rosier, sister of And- of Narcissa Elaine Malfoy née Black, servant of the Dark Lord....»

The voice within my mind trails off as waves of agony shake me. I can't think of him here, can't look at my Mark without the loss biting my weary heart; although I see his eyes, hear his voice in my dreams sometimes. When I'm awake, it's impossible, unbearable. The transcendent Lord – the Lord I failed –

In my nightmares, I can't fear the pain of seeing him. They'll always be tormenting and haunting anyway; why should I bother? What's the point of cringing away from his face? I can't control what I dream about, but if I could, he is worth the most terrible prices.

The Dementors slide near me, a loose grouping around my cell and the others' in the top tower. We are the damned, the cursed and the hated, sentenced for life, left to be sucked out by those horrid creatures as they please. They gather closer and closer to my cell as I am engulfed by a sudden, violent surge of despair. I let out a small, tortured moan, and hide my face in my arms. I want them away, I want to get out of here. I want to see Him. For real. And to know that these rotten, panting things will never, ever steal him from me.

**Lynceus: an Argonaut, famous for his keen sight (Rodolphus's eyes in the trial – oh well, I chose that one to be my Rod anyway – had his eyes «darting around the crowd». Thanks, xoxLewrahxox, for checking this one for me!). He was always with his brother Idas. **

**Larcius: 1st dictator of Rome. It sounded in character with my way of seeing him. **

**Phasma: the Phantom (play of Ménandre). I see her as a phantomatic character, with cold feelings.... A much more extreme Narcissa....**

**Elaine: she lived in a castle in an island, and loved to look outside by her window. And one day, she happened to see Lancelot.... I decided it fit well for Narcissa... Angel-like, out of the world before she meets her love.... But _her_ Lancelot didn't let her down. XdoubleIndemnity, thank to have let me steal your name! I love you! **

**For Andromeda – though I didn't put it, I felt the need to have it – I chose Viviane: the fairy who gave Excalibur to Lancelot..... Because somehow she gave her strength to Ted... And because I just loved the idea....**


End file.
